Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 40: General Progress, 1923

There were very few men that, prior to the emancipation, had depended upon slave labor who emerged from the reconstruction period with any material thing of econo¬ mic importance except land, and land then had but a nominal commercial value. W. B. McCollough says his father often told him that if a new comer desired very much to buy a tract of land, he might be induced to pay fifteen cents per acre ; if the land owner were hard pressed for money, he would probably sell for ten cents per acre; but that where the land owner was neither practically forced to sell nor the purchaser over zealous to buy, the price was usually about twelve and one-half cents per acre.

A considerable portion of the present county of Wil¬ liamsburg was swamp land until about 1900. When the pioneers settled here about 1730, it seems that nearly every one of them built his home within a stone's throw of a swamp and he buried his dead overlooking water. Hundreds of earth mounds showing the locations of the original adobe houses and the deeply ditched graveyards prove these statements. Neolithic peoples known as kitchen-middens of about ten thousand years before Christ lived on the lowlands of Scotland, from whence came these original settlers in Williamsburg. Was it a race instinct that placed these pioneer homes in Williamsburg over¬ looking swamps?

In the beginning, the mosquitoes that infested these sluggish waters seems to have been more annoying than harmful. Later, these little insects became infected by all kinds of fever producing germs and threatened the life of the swamp dwellers. It became necessary that every white family move out of the infested area during the mosquito months, and this proved a serious economic factor. Some of the wealthier men sent their families to the mountains every summer; others, unable to do this, built summer homes as far as possible away from the swamps. Later, everybody in Williamsburg began resid¬ ing permanently, winter and summer, on the highlands rather than in the low lands. One hundred years ago, a man might have travelled across Williamsburg without having seen a residence from the public roads : now the homes are nearly all located on the highways.

Some planters before the War between the Sections undertook to drain their swamp lands, but these were very few in number. There was so much land available that nearly everybody elected to plant small patches here and there where water would not interfere.

These high lands planted produced but little per acre unless fertilized, and from the War until about 1900 not very many farmers in the County had been able to pur¬ chase the necessary commercial fertilizer. At first, Peru¬ vian guano was used by planters. The cost of this was almost prohibitive; and besides, some wiseacres thought that this mixture actually destroyed the vitalizing el¬ ements in the soil. Later, commercial fertilizers grad¬ ually grew into use and the production of cotton increased. The soil of Williamsburg responds promptly and effec¬ tively to the intelligent use of chemical fertilizers.

Comparatively little land had been cleared for culti¬ vation up to 1900. It was about that time that nearly everybody began to realize that the swamp lands were much more fertile than the sand hills, and the drainage of the lowlands became a serious undertaking. Draining the swamps helped in the conquest of the mosquito as well as added greatly to the productiveness of the section. It was about 1890 when the first artesian well in the pres¬ ent limits of Williamsburg was bored at Hebron Metho¬ dist Church. This well has been flowing continuously since that time. It was soon found that pure artesian

With an abundance of pure and delightful artesian water all oyer the country, with the mosquito relegated to stagnant fens and moors far away from habitation, the health conditions rapidly improved and creative energy and productive ambition resulted in progression. Better lands planted produced more abundant harvests. About 1900, considerable visible material manifestation of economic development was evident.

About the only people in Williamsburg who accumu¬ lated any property between 1866 and 1876 were those who worked in the turpentine business. These men depended most largely on white labor. Nearly all of them had migrated into Williamsburg a few years before the beginning of the War between the States. Among these dealers in naval stores and pine products who made fortunes may be mentioned Captain J. F. Carraway, J. R. Lambson, R. H. Kimball, Edwin Harper, James Harper, R. H. Kellahan, Major C. S. Land, J. H. Pittman, and Dr. John F. Brockinton. Dr. Brockinton was the onlv man named in this list who was a native of Williamsburg.

As a rule during this time from 1876 to 1900, the mas¬ ters of plantations were losing them little by little as necessity forced them from time to time to convey to others their inheritances. As late as 1905, Charles W. Wolfe said, "Negro labor is yet worse than nothing." It did not produce so much as it utilized. The whites began the period laboring under the delusion that manual labor degraded, and it was exceedingly difficult for them to realize that a gentleman might work with his hands. Many years passed before either the negro or the white man could reasonably adjust himself to the changed con-

Cotton was practically the only thing produced for market during this period. It was grown in ever increas¬ ing quantities, but the price received had gradually diminished from one dollar per pound just after the War to four cents per pound in 1897. All this time it must have seemed to the "indwellers in Williamsburg" that the gods had determined to enslave them forever. Plant¬ ers had accounts with the merchants in Charleston and these accounts usually absorbed all the proceeds from the sale of their cotton every November. The planters of Wil¬ liamsburg by this system of marketing almost surrendered their independence to cotton factors and merchants in the City of Charleston. These cotton factors and merchants determined the price they charged for supplies and also the price they paid the planters for their cotton. Actual results from the negro labor and this system of market¬ ing show that the cotton planter in Williamsburg was between two mercilessly grinding millstones; that he, out of the substance which his ancestors had accumulated prior to the War and what his own energy could produce, fed and clothed freed negroes for a generation, as well as enriched cotton manipulators who kept him bound in economic chains.

Soon after the War between the Sections, the News and Courier, Charleston, undertook to promote the cultivation of tobacco in the State. Among other things, it offered a prize of considerable value for the best specimen of to¬ bacco grown in South Carolina. A great many men in various parts undertook to win this prize. It was awarded to Dr. Robert E. Maurice for his exhibit produced on his plantation in what is now the McCollough community, south of Black River, in Williamsburg.

and production of tobacco, it was thirty years later before it was undertaken. Sheriff J. E. Brockinton was the first man in the County to grow the "golden weed" for market. Tliis was about 1900. In many wavs Sheriff Brockinton was a valuable man in Williamsburg. His experiments growing early vegetables for market brought much light along this line and were instrumental in promoting the valuable trucking industry in the County.

For the first few years Williamsburg tobacco planters marketed their crops in Florence and Lake City. In 1909, W. K. McIntosh and D. J. Epps each operated a tobacco sales warehouse on what is now, 1923, the Williamsburg County Fair Association grounds. In that season, one and three-fourths million pounds of tobacco were sold in these two warehouses. The building now used bv the Fair Association for exhibits was one of these two sales warehouses. The other building was removed to the corner of Hampton and Mill Streets in Kingstree, where it was used as a sales warehouse until the brick Central Warehouse now standing replaced it.

In 1918, Williamsburg County produced eleven million pounds of tobacco and sold it for the average price of $33.20 per hundred. This crop of tobacco was all placed on the market during the month of August and the first week in September of that year and brought $3,652,000.00 into the County during that short time. There were four warehouses selling in Kingstree that year and several others in the smaller towns in the Countv. During that five weeks in 1918, Nelson's Warehouse in Kingstree paid out to farmers for their tobacco $989,752.52. This was, however, the largest sales warehouse in the County. It was owned and operated by W. K. McIntosh, E. J. Hester, E. C. Burgess, and L. F. Rhem. There were sold in 1918 in Kingstree during that memorable five weeks seven and one-half million pounds of tobacco.

Williamsburg produced that year an enormous cotton crop and it sold for about forty cents a pound. Those old men in Williamsburg who had been conscientious, con¬ sistent, continuous apostles of gloom for three or four score of years rubbed their eyes on Christmas morning and some of them actually admitted that Williamsburg was the promised land. That year and the next Williamsburg had an abundance of everything.

The census of Williamsburg County, 1920, shows its total population as 38,539, male 19,029, female, 19,510. There were only thirty-eight persons of foreign birth in the County, less than one-tenth of one per centum. There were 13,046 whites and 25,452 negroes, one Indian, and two Chinese. In 1920, the percentage of white population was 33.9 ; negroes 66 ; foreign born less than .1. In 1910, the percentage of white population was 38.2 ; the negro, 61.7. In 1920, there were 3006 white males and 4775 colored males over twenty-one years of age in the County. There were 7,232 dwelling houses in which there lived 7,318 farm ilies. The census valuation of all 1919 crops was $12,529,167.00; cereals, $2,035,529; seeds, $30,137; hay and forage, $288,410; vegetables, $283,030; fruits and nuts, $11,112; all other crops, $9,880,949. There were 992,260 bushels of corn, 37,102 bushels of oats, 2,159 bushels of wheat, 168 bushels of rice, 7,173 bushels of peas, 11,707,464 pounds of tobacco, 28,511 bales of cotton, 23,302 gallons

For more than a century Williamsburg has lived and moved and had its being in cotton. The cotton crop has been for this period of time the barometer for Williams¬ burg. The tobacco money that flooded the County in 1918 was regarded as "pin money" and was used in riotous living. Men bought high powered automobiles and gold bound talking machines. Women spent their part for jewel studded slipper heels, parlez-vous petticoats, and Poiret gowns. There were, however, some few men in the County who took advantage of these money floods and saved. This County is fundamentally a mixture of Scotch- Irish and French Huguenots and both of these races have alwavs realized that hard times will come.

Following closely on this period of unparalleled pros¬ perity in material things, there came "Deflation," two long rainy seasons and the boll weevil. Any one of these three might have brought financial gloom to Williamsburg, but concurrent as thev were and concomitant as thev seemed, they produced a condition in Williamsburg about which the most presistent pessimist could not complain. The moneyed men of Williamsburg declared that they had passed through panics and however much they had suf¬ fered from them thev would ever thereafter welcome a panic in preference to "Deflation." It rained almost every day during July and August 1920 and 1921 and these exces¬ sive rains gradually injured the tobacco crops and created just the climatic condition most favorable to the ravaging boll weevil. For many years cotton planters in Williams¬ burg had read accounts of the fearful destruction wrought by this little pest that had crossed the Rio Grande River from Mexico into Texas and had been making its way northward leaving cotton famine in its wake. One day early in July, 1921, the cotton planters realized that the boll weevil was here. There was dole in Astolat and well there may have been. In 1920, Williamsburg produced thirty-seven thousand bales of cotton. In 1921, it pro¬ duced two thousand seven hundred. Besides all this, the tobacco produced was very light in weight and its price was less than eight cents per pound. Pessimistic preachers were fulsome on dry goods boxes in Williams¬ burg. "We are ruined" and "I told you so" could be heard from morn till noon, and from noon till dewv eve, and from dewy eve until far into the night.

"Blackberry time" had been for ages blissful negro days until the boll weevil came. Some joker started the story that somewhere once upon a time a mother boll weevil laid some eggs in some blackberries, which blackberries some negroes ate, and those negroes immediately died. This story was heard by every Williamsburg negro and there¬ after the blackberry season became a period of mourning in all the land. Uncle Solomon Wilson said, "Boll weebil bite outen de cotton boll - hit die; boll weebil bite outen de nigger - he die. Nigger, let dem blackberries Tone."

Negroes and superstitious whites believed the boll weevil a curse of God and were exceedinglv doubtful about combating the pest. Some subtle negro, however, suc¬ ceeded in satisfying these ignorant ones that placing poison for destroying the insect, under orders from em¬ ployers, absolved them from the evil of "gwine 'ginst Gawd." It is remarkable how far the superstitious element was aroused by the boll weevil all over South Carolina. The Governor of the State, by proclamation, set apart Sunday, June 10, 1923, as a day of prayer and supplication to God to stay the destroying power of this little insect. This day was so observed by many congregations in Williams¬ burg.

It will be remembered that in the darkest days of the War of the Revolution in Williamsburg there came an hour when these Scotch-Irish gathered together in little groups, looked seriously into each others' faces, and some one said "something must be done." After the price of cotton had dropped from forty-two cents per pound in 1920 to nine cents in 1921 and its production in the County had fallen more than ninety per centum in a single twelvemonth, and the tobacco crop, when planted they expected to produce eight hundred pounds an acre and receive thirty cents per pound, actually produced four hundred pounds per acre which they sold at about eight cents per pound; these same Scotch-Irish gathered together in small groups and some one said, "something must be done."

In the fall of 1921, the Williamsburg County Fair Asso¬ ciation offered a prize for the best display of various articles produced on a farm in the County. Young Henry W. Haselden, of Hemingway, who cultivated the Lieu¬ tenant Haselden farm of eighty acres, won that prize. His exhibit showed the following articles produced on that eighty acres that year: four varieties of corn, long and short staple cotton, oats, rye, sorghum, peas, wheat, rib¬ bon cane, rice, soy and velvet and soja beans, Irish and sweet potatoes, tobacco, watermelons, cantaloupes, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, okra, gourds, hops, hay, fodder, pecans, acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, rutabagas, peanuts, chufas, mulberries, egg plants, collards, mustard, hot and sweet peppers, carrots, radishes, beets, tigs, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, lima beans, string beans, cabbage, artichokes, sugar corn, pie squash, grapes, grape preserves and jelly, grape acid, canned and preserved pears, canned and pre¬ served apples, plum jelly, apple butter, peanut butter, blackberry and cherry and orange and lemon jelly, pepper hash, sweet pepper pickle, cucumber and pear and peach pickle, hams, butter, sausage, lard, eggs from hens, guineas, turkeys, and ducks, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, Jap¬ anese persimmons, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cured pork and dairy products of all kinds.

looked over the things and remembered that they them¬ selves had produced on their farms that very year some things that young Haselden had not. They talked about what Haselden 's eighty acres had grown and knew that he had marketed $6,000.00 worth of produce from his farm that year. They realized that all of the things Hasel¬ den showed, and more, could be grown in marketable quantities at a profit on any small farm in Williamsburg Countv. And thev found out that Haselden was born in

1897, the youngest of seven sons and one of twelve chil¬ dren of J. P. and Martha Donnahue Haselden ; that he had received onlv the common school education afforded bv the old Johnsonville school ; that he had never been awav from home in his life except to serve in the World War; that this youngster was of good old average Williamsburg blood and breeding. They thought about that $6,000.00 farm income, besides surplus products saved in sufficient quan¬ tities for the following year, and remembered the low prices of cotton and tobacco that year.

In Haselden's and competing exhibits in that 1921 County Fair were a hundred things declaring "something can be done." Williamsburg realized that it had depended on cotton for more than a hundred years and that the average negro and the thriftless white would find it difficult to place their faith in anything else. It was determined to fight the boll weevil in every way to conquer the insect, but anyway starvation was impossible in this favored land and prosperity was comparatively easy with¬ out cotton. Every conceivable means for fighting the boll weevil was utilized. Some of them were fanciful inven¬ tions - calcium arsenate dusted on the young cotton plant, or placed thereon in combination with molasses, was most frequently used. There was more than one man in the Countv who took Uncle Caesar's advice about raising cotton under boll weevil influence, which was, "Plant him early, work him fast." These men produced cotton sue- cessfully in 1922, without using poisons. The old story of the father who told his son he had hidden a great treasure in his vineyard, one couid not help recalling, when he saw Williamsburg farmers during the fall and winter of 1922-23 clearing off the hedges and ditchbanks in order to destroy hibernating boll weevil. On these cleared hedges and ditchbanks rows of cotton were planted in 1923. Just how manv bales of cotton these theretofore uncultivated places will produce cannot now be counted. The boll weevil invaded Coffee County, Georgia, several years ago and some of its citizens seemed to believe all was lost. A few vears later a monument at the countv seat was erected to the boll weevil for that the little pest had taught the county how many things it could produce at a profit and how vain a thing depending on cotton alone could prove. The coming of the boll weevil has already taught Wil¬ liamsburg the same lesson - and more. Its people have been driven to diversification of farm products, something that the Clemson College Extension workers found pos¬ sible to teach but few. One of the most beneficent results of the boll weevil plague has been the convincing of a majority of the farmers of the County that they do not know all things and that even the}7 may learn something that their fathers did not tell them.

Road building began in Williamsburg in 1920 when the National Highway was projected through this County from North to South. Later, real highways from East to West were constructed, and then others. The United States Government furnished half the cost of building this road from Cades to Manning, the first undertaken. It was astonishing to see the number of landowners along this way who resisted the project with all their power. Three years later, all parts of the County were pleading for modern highways.

was one of the most important acts in the history of the County. This bridge had been badly needed for a century, yet when the county delegations of Charleston, Berkeley, and Williamsburg had the bill passed making this project materialize, a large number of people in each of the three counties breathed vengeance against their delegations. These people, however, soon realized the wisdom of their legislators and everybody approved before the completion of the bridge. Hugh McCutchen was senator, and W. H. Welch, S. C. Eaddy, and S. A. Graham composed the Wil¬ liamsburg County delegation in the legislature when the Santee River bridge bill was passed in 1920. On the Charleston delegation at that time as a member of the House of Representatives was D. Arthur Brockinton, a native of Williamsburg. Senator Arthur Young and Rep¬ resentative William Burguson, of Charleston, and Repre¬ sentative W. H. Welch, of Williamsburg, were the three active men of these delegations in securing the appropri¬ ations that made the Santee Bridge possible.

The Santee Bridge Commission was composed of three men from Charleston, two from Berkeley, and two from Williamsburg. This County's representatives on the com¬ mission were Peter G. Gourdin and Samuel A. Graham. Mr. Gourdin, a civil engineer of rank in his profession, with a first hand knowledge of Eastern South Carolina, physically and economically, proved a most valuable mem¬ ber of this commission. Mr. Graham had been interested in having a bridge built over the Santee at Murray's Ferry for manv vears; and during its construction in 1922 and 1923 gave it almost daily personal attention. His plan¬ tation is near the bridge and his home was always open to the commission.

The land owners of the Kingstree (or Broad) Swamp section of Williamsburg and Florence Counties had the territory incorporated in 1923 and voted about $200,000.00 in bonds for draining their lands according to the survey made by P. G. Gourdin, C. E. When completed, this will be one of the largest drainage systems in the state, with the main drain canal running from Kingstree to Olanta, a distance of 21 miles, and necessary laterals to drain smaller adjoining swamps. This project will give approximately 50,000 acres of fertile virgin land for ag¬ ricultural purposes, and will doubtless result in stimulat¬ ing the draining of a million other acres in Eastern South Carolina. Mr. Gourdin has been working quietly but effectively for many years for the consummation of drainage systems, and the indications are that his dreams will come "true." W. E. Nesmith and J. N. McKenzie, of Williamsburg, and J. C. Young, of Florence, are the Commissioners of the Kingstree Swamp Drainage Dis¬ trict, and have had the work begun.

Out of the storm and stress of financial conditions of 1922 there came the Tobacco Growers Co-operative Asso¬ ciation and the Cotton Growers Association, designed for the intelligent marketing of these two commodities. Ever since 1800, practically all of the cotton produced in Wil¬ liamsburg had been placed in the market within sixty days, during the months of September and October, of each succeeding year. The Cotton Growers Association was designed to collect the cotton of individual planters and to distribute it into the markets of the world as needed.

All of the tobacco grown in Williamsburg until 1922 had been sold during the month of August and the first week in September. Buyers came to the markets every year from North Carolina and Virginia and forced the tobacco planters to cure and sell all of their crop within sixtv davs. Tobacco sales warehouses were then "hurrah grounds" where tobacco buying was more of a gambling game than anything else, with everything in favor of the buyer. Farmers rushed their products from their curing barns to the sales floors, knowing little of the grade or value of their offerings, and buyers always played "safe."

In 1922, a majority of the tobacco planters of Williamsburg joined the Co-operative Association and sold their tobacco through its agency. W. K. McIntosh was man¬ ager and W. T. Wilkins, assistant manager, for the local branch. There was no tobacco sold in Kingstree in 1922 except through the Association. Two independent sales warehouses were operated in Kingstree in 1923. Wil¬ liamsburg tobacco farmers united with the Co-operative Association largely through the influence and labors of E. C. Epps, director in the Association under appoint¬ ment by the Governor of South Carolina. Mr. Epps is a successful banker. He has seen for many years the fear¬ ful results coming from individual unorganized sales of farm products and believes the economic salvation of to¬ bacco and cotton growers abides in co-operative market¬ ing. Since he accepted appointment as director in the association, Mr. Epps has become a crusading co-opera¬ tive association worker. He has made speeches all over the tobacco district in South Carolina and has proven his right to leadership in the association in the State.

In the beginning of the World War, wise men planted things on every available lot of land in the country. One saw tomatoes and beans growing close bv governors' mansions in many of the capital cities of the country. In the beginning of 1923, Williamsburg planted everything everywhere - more things on more ground than theretofore in its history. Until the day this was written, June 20, 1923, it has seemed that especial natural favors have supplemented its labors.

In 1922, Williamsburg produced 10,320,000 pounds of leaf tobacco, ranking first among the counties of South Carolina. This date, 1923, there were more acres of better tobacco growing in Williamsburg than at the same time last year. There were, too, more acres of cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, peas, vegetables, fruits, and flowers, and all in better condition. There were more high grade cattle

Men and women had been and were continuing learning rapidly the value of the things that they produce and how to secure better prices for them. Not only had the men actually realized that by co-operative marketing their cotton and tobacco commanded more money, but also they had learned that on their plantations they produced many things that were salable, and that butter and eggs and pork and poultry money is just as useful and valuable as that obtained in any other way.

In 1923, more young men and women from Williams¬ burg were graduated from the colleges of the country than in any two years of its prior history. More pupils were in the high and graded schools of the County, and far bet¬ ter work was done by them. An unusual number of these school boys and girls made remarkable progress and records during the year, and recent college honor rolls have been full of Williamsburg names. But, for the first time in its history, the parents of Williamsburg have been learning far more rapidly than their children. Preachers and prophets from Clemson College had been coming here for many years, but these old farmers would not hear them. "Deflation" and the "Boll Weevil" came two and one-half years ago. These old farmers sneered and cursed and com¬ plained under their schooling; but, about Christmas time 1922, they could read the handwriting on the wall. It de¬ clared, "Produce - in God's name, produce!"